The prevalence of drug use and abuse worldwide, especially in the United States, has reached epidemic levels. There are a plethora of drugs, both legal and illegal, the abuse of which have become serious public policy issues affecting all strata of society with its obvious medical and social consequences. Some users live in an extremely high risk population associated with poverty and illegal activity. Other users who might classify themselves as recreational users are at risk due to (a) properties of the drug(s) which make them addictive, (b) a predisposition of the user to become a heavy user or (c) a combination of factors including personal circumstances, hardship, environment and accessibility. Adequate treatment of drug abuse, including polydrug abuse, requires innovative and creative programs of intervention.
An especially problematic drug is cocaine, an alkaloid derived from the leaves of the coca plant (Erythroxylon coca). In the United States alone, there currently are more than 5 million regular cocaine users of whom at least 600,000 are classified as severely addicted (Miller et al. (1989) N. Y. State J. Med. pp. 390-395; and Carroll et al. (1994) Pharm. News. 1:11-16). Within this population, a significant number of addicts actively are seeking therapy. For example, in 1990, 380,000 people sought medical treatment for cocaine addiction and the number is increasing. At that time, it was estimated that 100,000 emergency room admissions per year involve cocaine use. The cumulative effects of cocaine-associated violent crime, loss in individual productivity, illness, and death is an international problem.
The lack of effective therapies for the treatment of cocaine addiction strongly suggests that novel approaches must be developed. Additional factors contributing to the lack of successful treatment programs is that patterns of cocaine abuse have varied with time. In an article entitled "1994 Chemical Approaches to the Treatment of Cocaine Abuse" (Carroll et al. (1994) Pharm. News, Vol. 1, No. 2), Carroll et al. report that since the mid-1980's, intravenous and nasal dosing of the hydrochloride salt (coke, snow, blow) and smoking of cocaine free-base (crack) have become common routes of administration, producing euphoria and psychomotor stimulation which last 30-60 minutes. Unlike some other abused drugs, cocaine can be taken in binges lasting for several hours. This behavior leads to addiction, and in some cases, to toxic consequences (Carroll et al., Pharm. News, supra.).
There are only very limited treatments for drugs of abuse and no effective long term treatments for cocaine addiction. Treatments include, but are not limited to, counseling coupled with the administration of drugs that act as antagonists at the opioid receptors or drugs that try to reduce the craving associated with drug addiction. One approach to treatment is detoxification. Even temporary remissions with attendant physical, social and psychological improvements are preferable to the continuation or progressive acceleration of abuse and its related adverse medical and interpersonal consequences (Wilson et al. in Harrison's Principle of Internal Medicine Vol. 2, 12th Ed., McGraw-Hill (1991) pp. 2157-8). More specifically, pharmacological approaches to the treatment of cocaine abuse generally involve the use of anti-depressant drugs, such as desipramine or fluoxetine which may help manage the psychological aspects of withdrawal but, in general, do not directly affect the physiology of cocaine. Further, their effectiveness varies widely (Brooke et al. (1992) Drug Alcohol Depend. 31:37-43). In some studies, desipramine reduced self-administration (Tella (1994) College on Problems of Drug Dependence Meeting Abstracts; Mello et al. (1990) J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther. 254:926-939; and Kleven et al. (1990) Behavl. Pharmacol. 1:365-373), but abstinence rate following treatment did not exceed 70% (Kosten (1993) Problems of Drug Dependence, NIDA Res. Monogr. 85). There has also been the use of drugs which potentiate dopaminergic transmission, such as bromocriptine, but the benefits of such drugs are limited in part by toxicity (Taylor et al. (1990) West. J. Med. 152:573-577). New drugs aimed at replacing methadone for opioid addiction, such as buprenorphine, have also been used based on cross-interference with the dopaminergic system, however only limited clinical study information is available (Fudula et al. (1991) NIDA Research Monograph, 105:587-588). Buprenorphine has been reported to decrease cocaine self-administration (Carroll et al. (1991) Psychopharmacology 106:439-446; Mello et al. (1989) Science 245:859-862; and Mello et al. (1990) J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther. 254:926-939); however, cocaine abstinence rates following treatment generally do not exceed 50% (Gastfried et al. (1994) College on Problems of Drug Dependence Meeting Abstracts; and Schottenfeld et al. (1993) Problems on Drug Dependence, NIDA Res. Monogr. 311).
Present therapies used to treat cocaine addicts have at least four major limitations leading to a very high rate of recidivism. First, and perhaps most fundamentally, the contributing neurochemical events in cocaine abuse and addiction are complex (Carroll et al. (1994) supra.). As a result, single acting neuropharmacological approaches, such as inhibition of dopamine uptake, do not appear to be sufficient to overcome addiction. Second, the drugs currently used in cocaine addiction treatments have significant side-effects themselves, limiting their utility. Third, drug therapy compliance is problematic among this patient population. Current therapies can require frequent visits to a health care provider and/or self-administration of drugs designed to cure the addict of his habit. Because many of these drugs prevent the euphoria associated with cocaine, there is a strong disincentive to taking the drug. (Carroll, et al. (1994) supra.; Kosten et al. (1993) Problems of Drug Dependence, NIDA Res. Monogr. 132:85; Schottenfeld et al. (1993) Problems of Drug Dependence, NIDA Res. Monogr. 132:311.) Fourth, because of the complex chemistries involved in pharmacological therapies, many of them may be incompatible with other therapies currently in use or in clinical trials.
Experimental diagnostic approaches and therapies have been suggested in the literature which have yet to be practiced. For example, vaccination as a therapeutic approach for drug addiction has been described previously in principle. Bonese et al. investigated changes in heroin self-administration by a rhesus monkey after immunization against morphine (Bonese et al. (1974) Nature 252: 708-710). Bagasra et al. investigated using cocaine-KLH vaccination as a means to prevent addiction (Immunopharmacol. (1992) 23:173-179). Rats were immunized with cocaine-KLH conjugate which raised some anti-cocaine antibodies. However, these results are in dispute (Gallacher (1994) Immunopharm. 27:79-81). Obviously, if a conjugate is to be effective in a therapeutic regimen, it must be capable of raising antibodies that can recognize free cocaine circulating in vivo. Cerny (WO 92/03163) describes a vaccine and immunoserum against drugs. The vaccine is comprised of a hapten bonded to a carrier protein to produce antibodies. Also disclosed is the production of antibodies against drugs, and the use of these antibodies in the detoxification of one who has taken the drug.
Passive administration of monoclonal antibodies to treat drug abuse has been previously described (see, Killian et al. (1978) Pharmacol. Biochem. Behavior 9:347-352; Pentel et al. (1991) Drug Met. Dispositions 19:24-28). In this approach, pre-formed antibodies to selected drugs are passively administered to animals. While these data provide a demonstration of the feasibility of immunological approaches to addiction therapy, passive immunization as a long term human therapeutic strategy suffers from a number of major drawbacks. First, if antibodies to be used for passive therapy are from non-human sources or are monoclonal antibodies, these preparations will be seen as foreign proteins by the patient, and there may be a rapid immune response to the foreign antibodies. This immune response may neutralize the passively administered antibody, blocking its effectiveness and drastically reducing the time of subsequent protection. In addition, readministration of the same antibody may become problematic, due to the potential induction of a hypersensitivity response. These problems can be overcome by production or immune immunoglobulin in human donors immunized with the vaccine. This approach is discussed in more detail in the Examples. Second, passively administered antibodies are cleared relatively rapidly from the circulation. The half life of a given antibody in vivo is between 2.5 and 23 days, depending on the isotype. Thus, when the antibodies are passively administered, rather than induced by immunization, only short term effectiveness can be achieved.
Another immunological approach to drug addiction has been to use a catalytic antibody which is capable of aiding hydrolysis of the cocaine molecule within the patient (Landry et al. (1993) Science 259:1899-1901). The catalytic antibody is generated by immunization of an experimental animal with a transition state analog of cocaine linked to a carrier protein; a monoclonal antibody is then selected that has the desired catalytic activity. Although this approach is attractive theoretically, it also suffers from some serious problems. Catalytic antibodies must be administered passively and thus suffer from all of the drawbacks of passive antibody therapy. Active immunization to generate a catalytic antibody is not feasible, because enzymatic activity is rare among antibodies raised against transition state analogs, and activity does not appear to be detectable in polyclonal preparations. In addition, the general esterase-like activity of such catalytic antibodies and the uncontrolled nature of the active immune response in genetically diverse individuals makes them potentially toxic molecules, particularly when they are being produced within a human patient.
Yugawa et al. (EP 0 613 899 A2) suggest the use of cocaine-protein conjugate containing a cocaine derivative for raising antibodies for the detection of cocaine or cocaine derivatives in a blood sample. The Syva patents (U.S. Pat. No. 3,888,866, No. 4,123,431 and No. 4,129,237) describe conjugates to raise cocaine antibodies for immunoassays. Disclosed are conjugates to BSA using diazonium salts derived from benzoyl ecgonine and cocaine. Conjugates are made using para-imino ester derivatives of cocaine and norcocaine to conjugate a carrier. Biosite (WO 93/12111) discloses conjugates of cocaine using the para- position of the phenyl ring of various cocaine derivatives increasing stability to hydrolysis by introducing an amide bond. The Strahilevitz patents (U.S. Pat. No. 4,620,977; U.S. Pat. No. 4,813,924; U.S. Pat. No. 4,834,973; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,037,645) disclose using protein conjugates of endogenous substances and drugs for treatment of diseases, preventing dependence on psychoactive haptens, as well as for use in immunoassays, immunodialysis and immunoadsorption.
However, no effective therapy for drug addiction, especially, cocaine addiction, has been developed. Thus, there is a need to develop a long term treatment approach to drug addiction, in particular cocaine addiction, which does not depend totally on the addicted individual for compliance and self-administration.